Very interesting approach. Basically, you can no longer use Google Search as a way to discover and learn about a subject the old-school way.
I guess the point here is that Google thinks schools need to start using AI, and that all this "no AI in schools" talk is nonsense.
1970-01-01 6 minutes ago [-]
Studies need to be done on how very terrible, bottom 5% of schools perform with all the extra AI help Google can enable. How could they possibly do worse with it running?
ceejayoz 2 minutes ago [-]
> How could they possibly do worse with it running?
It's almost always possible to do worse.
skeledrew 4 minutes ago [-]
This is great! Push more people towards DuckDuckGo, etc.
gdulli 15 minutes ago [-]
A big part of this era is a shift to de-anonymizing all search, research, etc. That should be seen as its own problem separate from one's feelings about AI.
account42 42 minutes ago [-]
Hopefully this will backfire and end with kids learning to use other search engines.
tikkabhuna 39 minutes ago [-]
It will be interesting to see what search engine students start using. I still use Google because that's what I used at school.
6thbit 25 minutes ago [-]
I think that's the largest shortsightedness of google's choice.
All those kids will get used to whatever other search they can use.
0c3ca83 18 minutes ago [-]
For responsibile learning, focus on pencil, paper, and books.
mym1990 13 minutes ago [-]
Very narrow minded approach, why not use the tools available? Experimentation is one of the best ways to learn, breaking stuff is a great way to learn. Doesn’t mean that people won’t fall into some traps along the way, but that’s kind of the case with anything.
This is along the lines of “for responsible parenting, never let your kids out of sight”.
ceejayoz 7 minutes ago [-]
> Experimentation is one of the best ways to learn, breaking stuff is a great way to learn.
Breaking stuff sometimes is a way to learn "don't break that".
Broken children can be tough to fix.
walt_grata 6 minutes ago [-]
Its also an approach backed up by research and studdies.
I still cannot believe there are people in education that can maintain that humans under 25 arent done neurologically developing ans have issues managing distractions and that tech in the classroom is a good idea (outside of classes deliberately teaching technology)
0c3ca83 9 minutes ago [-]
Yes, doing things by hand is another thing to prioritize.
A good deal of research shows that most learning happens when you recognize and back off from an incorrect solution on your own, without outside guidance. So, the key to a good learning environment is setting up scenarios where the backround information is present, and answers aren't out of reach, but there's a bit of struggle to find them.
This is also how you learn to learn, and develop grit. Grit is one of the best predictors of success.
Technology that gives answers or guides heavily is harmful to the learning process.
messh 42 minutes ago [-]
How is this not monopolistic behavior?
silverFork 18 minutes ago [-]
Their search engine is now integrated with Ai. So either google would need to block the search engine or the school if they don't want Ai. Take your pick.
ceejayoz 4 minutes ago [-]
That's the same argument Microsoft made with Internet Explorer.
I wonder if schools will manage to filter this. Probably on windows , but I'm less sure on chromebooks.
xhkkffbf 34 minutes ago [-]
The students can just log in with a generic Gmail account using a incognito tab.
ceejayoz 30 minutes ago [-]
That's often blocked on school-provided devices.
ceejayoz 33 minutes ago [-]
I really don't like that my original submission "Google Will Turn Off Search for Schools That Reject A.I." from the New York Times got replaced with "Designing responsible AI for learning" PR slop from Google Corporate that doesn't even disclose this limitation.
If the mods are gonna Orwell this, at least take my name off it.
edit: Thanks, mods, for putting it back.
water-data-dude 58 seconds ago [-]
Yeah, that's disturbing behavior. Maybe I've been living under a rock, but I kinda assumed the mod team wouldn't blatantly whitewash like this
jeltz 8 minutes ago [-]
Yeah, that is not ok at all. Flagged this post.
TazeTSchnitzel 41 minutes ago [-]
This comes off as comically evil. Disabling the AI summaries in search results is trivial, so them refusing to do so and blocking search entirely feels like a blatant attempt at coercion. Isn't it an abuse of monopoly power?
nsoam 37 minutes ago [-]
That would make sense if the AI summaries from Search were a different product.
jdiff 31 minutes ago [-]
These summaries have been trivially bolted on, they're entirely self-contained, they can be easily turned off.
nsoam 24 minutes ago [-]
Some results also have thumbnails. They could easily be turned off. That doesn’t mean thumbnails are a different product, or an abuse of monopoly power.
Hamuko 15 minutes ago [-]
And sometimes they just fail to generate, while the search still shows the usual results.
demo4567 43 minutes ago [-]
good riddance. it is useless anyways
jlev1 45 minutes ago [-]
> If a school has banned A.I., he [Chris Phillips, vice president for education at Google] added, students “will not have access to search, and they’ll see a message from their school that indicates it’s not available.”
So scummy! Make it sound like the school's decision, rather than Google's.
bluefirebrand 42 minutes ago [-]
Sad to see Google's playbook become "be as evil as possible"
I know they removed "don't be evil" a while ago now, but they didn't have to immediately become the exact opposite
elmcrest 43 minutes ago [-]
so what? there are alternatives... and who still googles nowadays anyways :)
lirolero 39 minutes ago [-]
[dead]
Catloafdev 43 minutes ago [-]
They've come a long way from 'don't be evil'
gdulli 13 minutes ago [-]
I guess it was effectively phrased in the second person.
krunck 38 minutes ago [-]
"Don't" isn't all that far, it's just one word.
djoldman 42 minutes ago [-]
As usual, the truth is a little less clickbaity. It's just opt-in:
> We believe schools should have control over AI in their classrooms and in providing administrators with controls to help them manage their approach. After listening to schools, teachers, leading researchers, and policymakers, we are now updating our approach to controls for Gemini, Gemini Notebook, Gemini in Classroom, and Google Search. Access to these products will be entirely off for K-12 student accounts until school administrators explicitly turn them on.
6thbit 34 minutes ago [-]
Google blog says search will be off by default, alongside Gemini stuff.
And NYT says they would only be able to turn search on if they enable all of the Gemini stuff. That is not mentioned explicitly on google's blog. So not _that_ clickbaity?
kccqzy 33 minutes ago [-]
> … and Google Search. Access to these products will be entirely off for K-12 student accounts until school administrators explicitly turn them on.
So yeah the blog post says Google Search itself will be entirely off until being turned on. There’s nothing in this blog post to indicate whether Google Search can be turned on without also turning on Gemini. Although I hate the NYT, the NYT is quoting someone from Google saying there won’t be separate controls for Gemini and Google Search.
dan_thinks 35 minutes ago [-]
From the article, Google AI is deeply integrated with Google Search. So the article is correct - turning off one turns off the other.
From a privacy perspective, having all of this off by default is sensible. But only offering a basic product like Search if you opt into AI (when search as a capability does not need AI to function) - is newsworthy.
shostack 40 minutes ago [-]
Does Google tie Gemini access for schools to their ability to train on the data and use it for ads and measurement like they have done to Android if you want to do anything halfway useful you used to do with Assistant before they killed it?
ceejayoz 40 minutes ago [-]
> A.I. features are now a standard part of Google’s commercially available search engine. “Search and A.I. are deeply integrated,” said Chris Phillips, vice president for education at Google. If a school has banned A.I., he added, students “will not have access to search, and they’ll see a message from their school that indicates it’s not available.”
C'mon, it's right in the article.
The school can control AI on/off. Off means no search too.
skeledrew 37 seconds ago [-]
Well their search engine is explicitly AI-driven; no AI, no search. Like you can't have juice that doesn't contain water.
john_strinlai 38 minutes ago [-]
the problem is that it's bundled.
you either get search + all the ai stuff, or you get none of it. you can't just opt-in to search alone.
(in other words, title is accurate. block ai = no search)
Get "uBlock origin" bro and ads go away. Also you can click the archive link that op posted and read it there without paywall.
jeffbee 21 minutes ago [-]
It isn't possible for Google to run a websearch query "without AI" and it hasn't been for over 10 years.
morkalork 17 minutes ago [-]
Would you agree that there is a difference between "search results ranked by AI" and "Magic box that blurts out an answer"?
We do want to teach kids how to do searches, to look at and parse results and basically do "online research", right. Not just blindly trust the magic answer box?
gdulli 12 minutes ago [-]
It's incredibly obtuse to pretend not to understand that people object to LLM slop, but not everything that can fall under the broad term of "AI".
OroPla 38 minutes ago [-]
What do schools need Google for anyway? Had education deteriorated this much already?
Images for a slideshow, citations for an essay, research for a project?
antiframe 11 minutes ago [-]
Yes, when I was a student I never touched Google and don't understand why anyone would need it. /s
It's true, I used AltaVista and Yahoo! search because Google didn't exist yet.
nilamo 29 minutes ago [-]
This is great! Google search has been declining in usefulness so much, that it shouldn't be used by students anyway. And then there's the shitty ai summaries, which students definitely shouldn't have to worry about whether or not it's accurate.
Rendered at 16:48:28 GMT+0000 (Coordinated Universal Time) with Vercel.
I guess the point here is that Google thinks schools need to start using AI, and that all this "no AI in schools" talk is nonsense.
It's almost always possible to do worse.
All those kids will get used to whatever other search they can use.
This is along the lines of “for responsible parenting, never let your kids out of sight”.
Breaking stuff sometimes is a way to learn "don't break that".
Broken children can be tough to fix.
A good deal of research shows that most learning happens when you recognize and back off from an incorrect solution on your own, without outside guidance. So, the key to a good learning environment is setting up scenarios where the backround information is present, and answers aren't out of reach, but there's a bit of struggle to find them.
This is also how you learn to learn, and develop grit. Grit is one of the best predictors of success.
Technology that gives answers or guides heavily is harmful to the learning process.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft_Cor....
If the mods are gonna Orwell this, at least take my name off it.
edit: Thanks, mods, for putting it back.
So scummy! Make it sound like the school's decision, rather than Google's.
I know they removed "don't be evil" a while ago now, but they didn't have to immediately become the exact opposite
https://blog.google/products-and-platforms/products/educatio...
> We believe schools should have control over AI in their classrooms and in providing administrators with controls to help them manage their approach. After listening to schools, teachers, leading researchers, and policymakers, we are now updating our approach to controls for Gemini, Gemini Notebook, Gemini in Classroom, and Google Search. Access to these products will be entirely off for K-12 student accounts until school administrators explicitly turn them on.
And NYT says they would only be able to turn search on if they enable all of the Gemini stuff. That is not mentioned explicitly on google's blog. So not _that_ clickbaity?
So yeah the blog post says Google Search itself will be entirely off until being turned on. There’s nothing in this blog post to indicate whether Google Search can be turned on without also turning on Gemini. Although I hate the NYT, the NYT is quoting someone from Google saying there won’t be separate controls for Gemini and Google Search.
From a privacy perspective, having all of this off by default is sensible. But only offering a basic product like Search if you opt into AI (when search as a capability does not need AI to function) - is newsworthy.
C'mon, it's right in the article.
The school can control AI on/off. Off means no search too.
you either get search + all the ai stuff, or you get none of it. you can't just opt-in to search alone.
(in other words, title is accurate. block ai = no search)
edit: Looks like it was undone. Thank you, whoever that was.
We do want to teach kids how to do searches, to look at and parse results and basically do "online research", right. Not just blindly trust the magic answer box?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_for_Education
It's true, I used AltaVista and Yahoo! search because Google didn't exist yet.